The Scorching Sun - 3

At A-High, Sunday afternoons still meant classes, and senior students were expected to arrive early for self-study.

Yan Lie got to school right after breakfast. He hung his backpack on the side of his desk and spent the morning waiting for Fang Zhuo to show up.

He couldn't explain where his curiosity had come from. Somehow, he'd found himself paying a little more attention to his new deskmate.

In the end, Fang Zhuo didn't arrive until around one in the afternoon, a full twenty minutes after self-study had already started.

She eased the back door open with care and slipped inside on tiptoe. A chill clung to her as she passed by. Without a word, she set down her backpack, grabbed a spare jacket and a small brush from beside her desk, then immediately turned to leave again. The whole sequence was so quick Yan Lie didn't even get a chance to open his mouth. 

He watched her the entire time. She was still wearing yesterday's clothes, the tops of her shoes were caked in mud, and her clothes were only half dry. It wasn't hard to guess that she hadn't gone home last night.

Suddenly, he felt an overwhelming need to use the bathroom.

Setting down his workbook, Yan Lie grabbed a packet of tissues from his bag and followed her out.

She wasn't in the restroom. Following the sound of running water, he took a few steps toward the storage room beside it. There she was, her head bent over beside the shallow sink where students usually washed their mops, scrubbing her shoes.

The sink was too low for comfort. Barefoot, she crouched on the floor with her back hunched awkwardly.

The shoes looked just as miserable. They had long since faded, the quality didn't seem very good to begin with, and the rubber at the toes had already peeled away. With the force she was scrubbing them now, they probably wouldn’t survive much longer.

Why? Yan Lie wondered.

Why did she always look like a little cabbage left out in the cold, radiating misery from every angle?

***

After a great deal of effort, Fang Zhuo finally scrubbed the mud from her shoes clean. She held them upside down and squeezed out the water, then stood to stretch out her aching back, planning to spot clean the mud splatters on her school uniform jacket while she was at it.

On her way back the day before, she'd accidentally stepped into a puddle. Murky water had splashed up, leaving dark stains across part of her jacket.

The stagnant water had smelled foul to her. She wet the bar of soap and carefully rubbed every muddy spot.

The first period was almost over. Fang Zhuo wanted to hurry and get all of this mess dealt with before the bell.

A dull knocking suddenly echoed from the doorway.

It came several times in succession before she realised it was directed at her.

She looked over. The first thing she saw was a pair of plain white sneakers.

A pale, slender hand set them on the ground and nudged them toward her. Then someone leaned around the wall, crouched down, and waved at her.

His light chestnut hair looked almost golden beneath the bright sunlight flooding the hallway, and his smile was impossibly bright. "If they don't fit, exchange them at the school store."

Then, as casually as he’d come, he stood and left.

Him again.

Fang Zhuo lowered her eyes.

Were they even that close?

She finished washing her jacket, rinsed her feet as well, and only then put on the shoes.

They fit surprisingly well. Though the soles were a little stiff.

Carrying everything back to the classroom, she placed her old shoes on the storage shelf at the back and draped her jacket over the back of her chair. Sitting in the last row meant it wouldn't bother anyone.

Shen Musi, who sat in front of them, turned around and rapped his knuckles against Yan Lie's desk. "Lie-ge, did you finish the English paper? Let me copy it."

Without looking up from the game on his phone, Yan Lie replied, "Already lent it out. Go find it yourself."

Fang Zhuo returned with a cup of water and had just sat down when Yan Lie lifted his eyes. "Ask Fang Zhuo. She definitely finished hers."

Shen Musi had been about to turn back around. Hearing that, he awkwardly twist toward Fang Zhuo instead.

After a brief silence, Fang Zhuo took a sip of water and asked with an odd note to her voice, "You want to copy mine?"

"Uh..." Shen Musi wasn't familiar with her either. Bracing himself, he said, "Could I?"

"You know how many points I got on the last English exam?"

She asked it with such intimidating confidence that it sounded suspiciously like ‘Do you know who my father is?’

Shen Musi blinked. "How many?"

He remembered most of the top scorers in every subject. Fang Zhuo's math and combined sciences were decent, but her English… he couldn't recall anything notable.

"Seventy-two."

"..."

"..."

"So the person who barely scraped a passing grade was you?" Shen Musi muttered under his breath. "I thought it was Shi Tou. I was too embarrassed to ask."

The moment the words left his mouth, he quickly glanced at Fang Zhuo, worried he'd offended her.

Instead, she merely nodded calmly. "My English isn't very good."

Yan Lie laughed. He abandoned his game and set his phone down. "Hang on."

He made a quick round of the classroom and soon gathered up the worksheets he'd lent out earlier.

Shen Musi's eyes lit up. Raising both hands eagerly to receive them, he grinned. "Thanks, Lie..."

Instead, Yan Lie lifted the paper high above Shen Musi’s reach, sidestepped him, and dropped it onto Fang Zhuo’s desk. "Here. Ask me if you don't understand anything,” he said magnanimously. 

Shen Musi's smile froze. He looked at Yan Lie, wanting to protest, but the guy simply ignored him. Turning back to Fang Zhuo, he saw she had already taken out her own paper.

After an awkward pause, he mumbled, "Uh... Fang Zhuo…jie, copying's not really your lane. Your grades, uh, suit the natural, original approach better."

Shen Musi had started school early. He was one or two years younger than most of his classmates, wasn't very tall, and still looked boyish. But that "jie"—that honorific had burst out purely on survival instinct.

 

Yan Lie grabbed a book and bopped him lightly on the head. "You telling her what to do?"

In truth, Fang Zhuo had already finished the worksheet. She quickly checked her multiple-choice answers against Yan Lie’s, then passed her paper over to Shen Musi.

The young man accepted it happily.

The young comrade accepted it joyfully. "Thanks, Fang Zhuo..." The final syllable had barely left his mouth when he caught the expressionless look on Fang Zhuo’s face and instinctively added, “…jie.”

Fang Zhuo had never had such a polite younger brother. She didn’t know why Shen Musi behaved like a mouse cornered by a cat every time he saw her. Still, he was infinitely more endearing than Fang Yiming's son.

She answered with a reserved "Mm," which Shen Musi somehow took as approval.

Completely bewildered by himself, Shen Musi quietly turned back around.

***

After evening self-study, the students dispersed in twos and threes. Fang Zhuo tidied her desk and returned to the dormitory alone.

By the time her other roommates came back, she was already crouching on the small balcony, washing clothes.

The girls sat on the edges of their beds chatting idly while waiting for their turns in the shower.

A small orange bulb glowed on the balcony, attracting swarms of insects.

The first girl to finish showering dragged out a little stool to sit across from Fang Zhuo. She'd barely gotten her clothes wet and soaped up before beginning the hopeless battle against the mosquitoes.

Noticing the clothes soaking in Fang Zhuo's basin, she couldn't help saying, "Fang Zhuo, you really don't have to wash your clothes this often. School jackets, for example. Wei Xi only washes hers once a week."

The girl inside, currently applying lotion, yelled out at this, "Why are you using me as an example? You wash yours once a week too!"

The first girl burst out laughing, wrung out her clothes, and hung them on the drying rack.

There was a knock at the door. The visitor stood outside the open wooden door, craning her neck to peer inside. "Is Fang Zhuo here?"

Fang Zhuo dried her hands and walked over.

"This is for you." The short-haired girl smiled. "Takoyaki. Bai Lufei asked me to bring it to you. And a carton of milk."

Fang Zhuo lowered her eyes to the takeout container. Before she could say anything, the girl added, "He said if you don't want it, just throw it away."

Fang Zhuo's brow furrowed. The last few days had left her exhausted, she had no energy for this kind of nonsense. The boy's casual, presumptuous attitude only irritated her more. She took the food and asked, "How much was it?"

The short haired girl, who was already turning to leave, looked back in confusion. "Huh?”

Without another word, Fang Zhuo pulled a ten-yuan bill from her pocket, smoothed it flat, and tucked it into the girl's hand.

Her voice remained level, but anyone could hear the displeasure in it. "Tell him not to send things to our dorm again, or I'm going to start suspecting he's a shill for the snack street vendors. And don’t bring things over for him anymore. We're not close.”

Before the short-haired girl could recover her wits, Fang Zhuo had already closed the door.

She set the food on the desk, leaned against her bed, and sat there in silence for a while. After a while, she picked up the notebook beside her pillow and absentmindedly skimmed through a few pages.

Looking at the lonely figure sitting in the shadows, Wei Xi asked, "Fang Zhuo, are you going to eat that?"

Fang Zhuo shook her head.

"Then sell it to me. I'm hungry."

"No need. Just have it," Fang Zhuo replied. 

Wei Xi walked over with money in hand and smiled. "If you won't take the money, how about I trade you some snacks or fruit?"

After hesitating for quite a while, Fang Zhuo finally accepted it.

Wei Xi had actually already brushed her teeth. She stabbed a few octopus balls with a toothpick, then shared the rest with the other girls in the dorm to finish off.

Not long afterward, the dormitory lights went out on schedule.

The girls freshened up one last time before climbing into bed.

The faint smell of bonito flakes and sauce still lingered in the air. Wei Xi finally couldn't hold back anymore.

"What's wrong with those guys from the class next door? They're so full of themselves. It's senior year already and their grades are garbage. Who'd want to date them? Don't they have any self-awareness?"

"It's not even about their grades. They're just immature. Someone ought to keep them in line."

Lying with one arm beneath her head, Fang Zhuo remained silent.

"Good thing the guys in our class are pretty normal."

"Birds of a feather. We've got Yan Lie to keep everyone grounded. The boys over there are always making a scene and egging each other on."

Fang Zhuo's eyelid twitched at the mention of his name.

"Lie-ge's definitely one of the good ones. Otherwise those guys wouldn't resent him so much. He's just... way too much of a straight guy."

Wei Xi laughed. "You’ve got it wrong. Even being that much of a straight guy, girls still like him. That's exactly why they can't stand him."

"Seriously, Fang Zhuo, if Bai Lufei bothers you again, just tell him you like Yan Lie. Lie-ge’s basically a professional shield at this point. He’s doomed to stay single anyway. He won't mind.” 

Fang Zhuo turned over. "A clueless straight guy?" she asked, her voice tinged with doubt.

"Yeah." Wei Xi nodded. "Yan Lie's a total straight guy. Not considerate, not attentive, hasn't got the faintest clue of what girls want. Can't hold a deep conversation with a girl, always dodging with jokes and changing the subject. Otherwise he'd have had a girlfriend ages ago."

Fang Zhuo fell into thought.

Him? A clueless straight guy?

The standards are surprisingly high.

---

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